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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

COPYRIGHT OFFICE. 

No registration eH r tln of this book 
as a preliminary to copyriglit protec- 
tion iias been found. 

Forwarded to Order Division -lUN..£4:-4^i#- 

(Date) 

(Apr. ft. 1901— ri.OOO.) X%^ 



CITY OF COHOES 

Hudson -Fulton Celebration 

October 10 and 11, 1909 



WHERE HUDSON'S VOYAGE ENDED 

AN INQUIRY 
COHOES, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME 



By HARRY MONTFORD SWEET 



HISTORICAL COMMITTEE 

EDGAR B. NICHOLS DANIEL J COSGRO 

FRANK A. GALLUP HUGH P. GRAHAM 

HARRY M^ SWEET 



ALBANY 

J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS 

1909 






f 




Henry, HIjdson 



Keceived from 
'p;ht Office. 




HUDSON'S FURTHEST POINT NORTH ON THE 
RIVER THAT BEARS HIS NAME 

N this year of our Lord 1909, we hear much about the 
" Hudson-P\ihon Celebration " from writers who fill us 
with historic lore concerning the lower reaches of the 
Hudson, Manhattan Island, New Amsterdam and the 
building by Holland and the reception in New York 
of a replica of De Halve Maene; and back in our 
earliest school histories we learned about the entrance 
into New York harbor, three hundred years ago, of the wonderful 
little yacht commanded by Henry Hudson, and his memorable cruise 
up the River of the Mountains, and later we have enjoyed Clerk 
Juet's diary of every morning whether it were " faire weather " or 
" mystie, untill the sunne arose."' And when he " sayled twelve 
leagues," and had five fathoms, with the " river full of fish," our 
ecstacy was unbounded. But, 

" At five of the clocke in the afternoone," 
\\'hen " the wind came to south southwest. 
So wee made a boord or two, and anchored." 

we began to feel suspicious ; for the phraseology and the rhythm 
were so like a fragment of one of Dibdin's sea songs that it began 
to dawn upon us that we were being fed salt-water literature to 
the exclusion of historical facts relating to the furthest point north 
on the Hudson where at least five of the crew of the Half Moon, if 
not all, were privileged to land. From this spot, hallowed by three 
centuries of ever-changing activities, embracing the age of discovery, 
the Dutch and English colonial period with its attendant French and 
Indian wars, the American Revolution, the times of pastoral ease 
and finally the strenuous commercial life of to-day, the city of 
Cohoes greets you — Cohoes, the "Spindle City" of New York 
State, the early home of the historic Mahican, Mohican or Mohegan 
Indians, a branch of the great Algonquin race and later, by 
conquest, the eastern portal of the Long House of the Iroquois 
confederacy. Here on the Hudson — the Mahicanituck of the 
Mahicans. the Cohohatatea of the Iroquois, the Shatemuc of the 
lower River Indians, called the River of the IMountains by Hudson, 



Mauritius, Nassau, Orange and North Yi'wer by the Dutch and 
lastly Hudson's River by the English — is situated Cohoes with a 
frontage of nearly two miles; here on the Hudson, at the mouth of 
the Mohawk, where in 1609, they skirted 

" the sills of green-clad hills, 

And meadows white with mist — 
But alas ! the hope and the brave, brave dream I 

For rock and shallow bar the stream ; 
' O Pilot, can this be the strait that leads to the Eastern sea? ' 
' Nay, Captain, nay ; 'tis not this way ; turn back we must,' 
said he." 

will officially end the grand pageant commemorative of two great 
events that enter largely into the evolution of humanity ; the one 
the discovery of the Hudson and the consequent settlement of New 
York State and the other the practical adaptation of steam to the 
art of navigation. 

The claims of Cohoes as a participant in the grotip of cities that 
are connected with Hudson's achievement were so clear that the 
Commission had no hesitancy in conceding them, and on July 28th 
they by resolution set apart Sunday and Monday, October nth and 
i2th, for the final days of the great celebration, in this city; and of 
the appropriateness of this action there can be no question. 

The story of the beginnings of Hudson's quest for a passage to 
the China seas as formulated by the Dutch East India Comjjany is 
familiar to every one. and need form no part of our narrative. What 
we are concerned with is the movements of the Half Moon on the 
river that bears the great Captain's name and our relation to that 
event. 

The question how far the Half Moon came up the Hudson is a 
difficult one to answer because of the limited amount of historical 
data at our disposal. Prior to the year 1840 very little was known 
about the Dutch discoveries in America, but in the year 1841 John 
Romeyn Brodhead, an American lawyer and historian, was commis- 
sioned by the State Legislature to act as agent to procure and tran- 
scribe original documents referring to the history of the State. Mr. 
Brodhead spent three years searching the archives of Holland, Eng- 
land and France. As a result of his labors he secured upward of 
5,000 manuscripts and papers and deposited them in the Secretary 
of State's office at Albany where they were translated and have been 
drawn on from time to time by Bancroft, O'Callaghan, Woodrow 
Wilson, John Fiske and other historians. In 1908 an exceedingly 
valuable collection of Holland manuscripts, known as the Van Rens- 




riiotograijht.ii liiiJi il.L \tuay at Anistrrdain 

Replica of The Half Moon 



sclacr Bowicr ?\lanu>cripts. were published that shed new Ught on 
the early Duteh eolonial period ; most of the manuscripts having been 
written by the first patroon, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. All of the 
above have materially aided the student of the Dutch occupation. 
Hudson's voyage came before the [jublic through five or six different 
sources, two of them being noted more on account of the paucity 
of the material they contained than for throwing any particular light 
on the subject. 

The three sources that can be termed original are : first, " The 
Diar\- of Robert Juet of Lime-House England." Juet was mate 
of the vessel that Hudson commanded on his second voyage when 
he was in the employ of the Muscovy Company of London, prior 
to his engagement by the Dutch company, and accompanied Hudson 
in the Half Moon as clerk. The unfortunate thing about the diary 
is that it was kept like a shi|)'s log, greath- lacking in detail except 
as to the direction of the wind. 

The memorable sail up the river began on the 12th of September, 
i6og. " In the after-noone, at two of the clocke, wee weighed, the 
winde being variable betweene the north and the north-west." On 
" the igth it was faire and hot weather : at the floud, being neer of 
eleven of the clocke, wee weighed and ran higher up two leagues 
above the shoalds, and had no lesse water than five fathoms [thirty 
feet] ; wee anchored, and rode in eight fathoms. The people of the 
country came flocking aboord, and brought us grapes and pompions 
[pumpkins] which wee bought fi>r trifles. .\nd many brought us 
bevers skinnes and otter skinnes, which wee bought for beads, knives, 
and hatchets. So we rode there all night. This was the furthest 
])oint north that the Half Moon came. Here the little vessel, looking 
like a huge fish with wings to the astonished natives, rode safely at 
anchor, entertaining and being entertained by the aborigines. On 
the twentieth, " in the morning, was faire weather. Our masters 
mate with foure men more went up with our boat to sound the river, 
and found two leagues above us l)ut two fathomes of water, and 
the channell very narrow ; and above that place, seven or eight 
fathoms. Towards night they returned . . . " They were busy 
trading the next day and on " the two and twentieth was faire 
weather ; in the morning our masters mate and foure more of the 
companic went up with our boat to sound the river higher up, . . . 
this night at ten of the clocke, our boat returned in a showre of 
raine from sounding of the river : and found it to bee at an end for 
shipping to goe in. For they had beene up eight or nine leagues, 
and found but seven feet of water, and unconstant soundings." By 
il is time Hudson hail decided that it was useless to seek further in 



this direction for the coveted passage to the China seas, and on the 
next day they started back down the river. By the fourth of October 
they were "out also of llie great mouth of the great river." and 
" on the seventh day of Xovemljer stilo novo, being Saturday, by 
the grace of God we safely arrived in the range of Dartmouth, in 
Devonshire, in the yeere ificxj." 

Juet. in his account of the voyage, states that they went " nyi the 
river neere to fortie-three degrees." And in his daily reckoning 
they traveled fifty leagues and nine miles: this would be 15Q miles 
from the ])oint they entered the river. 

.\11 that we have of this dairy was published in the ijtli century 
by the Rev. Samuel Purchas, in a work entitled " Purchas ; His 
Pilgrims.'" 

The next account which we find, considered authentic and sup- 
posed to have been taken from the lips of Hudson himself, is \"an 
Meteren's "Historic Der Xcilcrlanden." published at the Hague in 
1 614. \'an Metcren was for many years the Dutch Consul in 
London. He was the personal friend of Hudson. In fact it was 
through hi^ efl:"orts that 1 Unison was engaged by the Dutch for his 
third and most famous voyage. He states that " they sailed along 
the shore until they reached -jo" 45', where they found a good 
entrance, between two headlam's, and thu-; entered on the 12th of 
.September, into as fine a river as can be found, with good anchoring 
ground on both sides. Their shiji sailed up the river as far as 42° 40'. 
Then their boat went higher up. .Vlong the river they found sensible 
and warlike people: whilst in the highest part the people were more 
friendly . . . ^\d^en they had thus been about fifty leagues 
up the river, they returned on the 4th of C)ctober, and went again to 
sea." At last they arrived at Dartmouth, England, whence they in- 
formed their employers, who ordered them home to Holland, but 
the government would not allow Hudson and those of the crew who 
were Englishmen to serve other than their own country. 

The third account is from John Dc Laet"s " Xieuwe Werelt," pub- 
lished in 1625 at Amsterdam. It is supposed that De Lael had before 
him Hudson's own report of the voyage. Unfortunately he quoted 
it sparingly and the original is missing. The account states that " they 
at length reached a lofty ]jromontory or headland, behind which 
was situated a bay which they entered and run up into a roadstead 
near a low sandy point, in latitude 40° 18' . . . sailing hence 
thev ascended a river to nearly -/_?° north latitude where it became 
so narrow and of so little depth that they found it necessary to re- 
turn." Hudson stated that in latitude 42° 18' he landed. This 
should be in the neighborhood of Xewton Hook. 



We have now shown all the authentic data that the student of 
history has at his disposal from original sources. From these 
meagre fragments historians attempt an analysis of Hudson's trip 
up the river and give the points where he anchored and had inter- 
course with the natives. 

Brodhead thought the ship's boat went up to the Half-Moon, and 
it is contended by some authorities that the name is commemorative 
of the event. Moulton thought the boat went up as far as Stillwater, 
while O'Callaghan concedes that the Half Moon proceeded to a point 
just below Albany. John Fiske, author of " Dutch and Quaker 
Colonies." a most careful student of history and whose analysis 
should l)e of the highest order, says: " (Jn the 22nd, [September] 
she I the Half Moon] had probably gone above the city of Troy, 
and the boat found only seven feet of water, so that progress was 
stopped." 

On our own account we venture an analysis and take the reader 
with us to a graphic map of the Hudson in this vicinity. 

The two statements — Juet's, that the ship went to nearly 43°. and 
Hudson's, that the ship sailed up the river as far as 42° 40'. must 
both be taken ciiiii yrano salts: we must remember that the instru- 
ments used by navigators in I iudson's time were far from perfect. 

Using the court house of each city as a basis of computation in 
degrees of latitude and for distances, we find the following figures 
useful in our deductions: 

.Mbany 42° 39' 3" R. R. miles from Xew York to 

Albany 143 

\\'atervliet 42° 43' 40" R. R. miles from Xew York to 

Watervliet 1 50 

Troy 42° 43' 42" K. R. miles from Xew York to 

Troy 150 

Cohoes 42° 46' 29" R. R. miles from Xew York to 

Cohoes 152 

Bemis Heights ) „ 
Batdefield. j "^"^ 

( These figures are approximately correct. ) 

Should we adopt the assumption of latitude as Juet expressed it. 
the vessel would have been anywhere between Cohoes and Stillwater, 
with the probability that the point would be in the neighborhood 
of the islands at the mouth of the Mohawk. On the other hand, 
if we accept Hudson's figures through \&n Meteren's account, the 
vessel stopped directly opposite the center of what is known as 

8 



SCALE. OF MILES 



f2°V8 



HZ'Hl' 



1ZU 19 



1Z IK,' 



i^Z fS 




HZ HZ 



Map^of the Hudson River i.\ the Vicinity of Cohoes 

9 



Little Patroon Island about one mile above Albany. 43° nortli lati- 
tude on the Hudson is about thirty miles further north and " nearly 
43° '' might be from fifteen to twenty miles south of that ]K)int. If 
it were twenty it would be opposite Cohoes ; but we shall see later 
that it could not be above the north sprout of the Mohawk. 

As to the condition of the river at that period we must remember 
that it must ba\e been consideralilv deeper than at the present time 
except where rifts cropped up near the surface. The water in the 
Huflson opposite Cohoes is ten feet above that at Troy owing to 
the State dam erected in 1821. In the 17th century the Mohawk 
at all four sprouts was fordable and likewise the Hudson at Half- 
Moon Point; the only road to the north from Albany, for nearly a 
hundred years, was over the islands fording the four sprouts of the 
Mohawk. Later when X'anderheyden's Ferry (Troy) came into 
existence, and New City ( Lansingburgh) was a rival of the city of 
Alban)', there was a road on the east side, and, continuing along the 
east bank, again crossed the Hudson by a ford at Waterford. One 
can readily observe from such conditions that it would be quite 
impossible for the Half ^loon to sail above the fourth sprout of the 
Mohawk, so we can readily eliminate any point north of the islands 
above mentioned. ISefore the State dam was erected, sloops and 
schooners plied between llalf-Moon Point and points down the 
river; for General Philip Schuyler who had extensive flax and saw 
mills at Saratoga ( Schuylerville ) drew his products to the Point 
when the water in the river was too low to raft them down from 
above, and then shipped from there to Albany. 

For authority as to the river being navigable to this piiint we are 
amjily jn'ovided. Localities in the early Dutch and. for that matter, 
in the English colonial days had no distinct line of demarcation. 
Limits were speculative ; for example. Fort Orange was really a fort 
under the immediate contml of the Dutch West India Company, in 
the village of r)everwyck. Still the locality was known by the former 
name. The Caboos sometimes referred to the Falls, and the Falls 
referred to the entire locality along the Hudson at the mouth of the 
Mohawk. From the log of the ship, Rensselearwyck, sailing from 
Amsterdam to Fort Orange, we find the following: " 1636. In the 
vear of our Lord 1636, the 25th of September, the boat called 
Rcussclacrs IVijck sailed in God's name from Amsterdam to tcssci 
[an island outside the Zuyder Zee. in Holland, where ships waited 
for favorable winds] at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. God pre- 
serve Rinselaers Wick ! " 

They arrived "at the ?ilanatans " March ist. and owing to the 
extreme cold and the river not being free from ice they did not sail 



up the river until the 26tli, and they arrived at " fucrt ocranicn 
April 7th" where they stayed, selling their goods until May 15th; 
then the log says : 

" Fr. 15 ^Ve went with our goods to the great falls [Cohoes], 
four leagues above fort oeranien. 

" Sat. 16 Fine weather. The wind about south. 
" Sun. 17 As above. 
"Alon. 18 As above. 

" Tu. 10 Macrtcii ycrrits went to the iiianataiis. This day we 
unloaded our mill stones and got ready to set sail. The wind south." 

For ten days the log stated : " The wind as above." And on " Sun. 
31, in the morning the wind .\. W. We set sail and ran past smacks 
Island and anchored there." 

This is conclusive evidence thai ships from Holland did actually 
sail from Amsterdam to Cohoes. 

Again, from the "Journal of the New Netherlands. 1641-46, Hoi. 
Doc. HI." "There are three principal rivers to wit: the fresh 
[Connecticut], the Mauritius [Hudson] and the South [Delaware] 
all three reasonably wide and deep, adapted for the navigation of 
large ships twenty-five miles up | one Dutch equal to three English] 
and of common barks even to the falls" | Cohoes], meaning on the 
Hudson opposite the present site of the city. 

That the Mohawks and the rest of the Five Nations came this 
way to trade, " carrying " around the falls we have the testimony 
of Father Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit martyr. In his description of 
the Colony of Rensselearwyck, he says : " The colony occupy two or 
three leagues of country. The settlement is not more than twenty 
leagues from the Aguiehronons ] Mohawks], who can be reached 
either by land or water, as the river in which the Iroquois lie, falls 
into that of the Dutch [ Hudson] ; but there are many shallow rapids 
and a fall of a short half league where the canoe can be carried." 
Doc. Hist. A'ol. l\\ p. 20. 

We also learn from documents in the Van Rensselaer Bowier 
Manuscripts, an account of the " Examination of Bastiaen Jansz 
Crol, former director of New Netherland [also mentioned as Krank- 
enbezoeker. Comforter of the Sick, at Fort Orange in 1626] being 
39 years of age, conducted at the request of the patroon by Notary 
Justus \'an de Ven, at Amsterdam, the 30 of June 1634." Among 
other questions put to him bv the examiner was : " No. 10. Whether 
he (Crol) did not station himself with his boat in the !Maquaas kil 
I Mohawk river] above the fort, in order to cut oft the ^ilaquaas 
[^lohawk] Indians from reaching Eelkins." Answer. " Yes." 



This Eelkins was skipper for Hans Jorisz Honton, who was 
cliarged with ilhcit trading with the Indians and also of murdering 
one of the Sachems of the Mohawks. He was a Dutch trader saihng 
under Enghsh colors, and was therefore not entitled to trade on the 
river, the territory being in the hands of the Dutch. 

At a convention held in Fort Orange, June 25, 1660, to correct 
abuses against the Indians, the proceedings were opened by a long 
speech from an Indian chief, in which he said: " Ye have included 
us and the Mohawks and the Mohegans in the peace of Esopus. Set 
now at libertv the savages ye have taken prisoners there. We are 
sometimes obliged to pass by that path. It is good that brothers 
live together in peace. The French savages meet the Mohegans near 
the Cahoos. This we regret." This council was held after the First 
Esopus war with the Indians of that neighborhood. The Dutch had 
called the Senecas, Mohawks and Mohegans to the council to hear 
the terms of the settlement; and it had resolved itself into one 
where they were obliged to adjust differences with the Senecas, who 
were members of the Iroquois confederacy. The Mohegans were 
relatives of the Algonquins of Canada, with whom the Iroquios were • 
at war ; hence the chieftain's regret that the Dutch allowed the 
Canadian Indians to come down and consult with the Mohegans — 
probably on Haver Island, where there had been a Mohegan strong- 
hold prior to 1628, when the lro<|uois had driven them from this 
section. 

Saratoga or Cheragtoga was an indefinite tract of land north of 
the Mohawk river on the Hudson in early Dutch colonial days ; but 
was localized by the Saratoga Patent of 1684, when its boundaries 
were specifically mentioned as a tract of land on both sides of the 
Hudson extending fn>m .Anthony's kil (the outlet of Round Lake) 
to the Battenkill. 

Half-]\Ioon is described as a certain plain so-called by the Dutch 
" situated at the third or fourth s|)rout of the Mohawk, with an 
Island between the second and third mouth." 

The foreland of the Half-Moon was just south of the north line 
of the Manor of Rensselaer. 

From "Aboriginal Place A'ainrs of Nezi' York " we learn that 
" ]Math-a-ke-na-ack," or the foreland of the Half-Moon, was sold in 
1675: also that " Xach-te-nack " — probably the same name — was 
applied to the site of Water ford and the mouth of the Alohawk and 
is probably derived from '' Nootau," fire, and the locative, meaning 
" Council Fire " and probably referring to the fortified Algonquin 
village called Alocnimins Castle on Haver, or Poebles" Island. 



In 1794, the Rev. Gideon Hawley of JMarchpee wrote a letter 
containing a narrative of his journey to Onohoghgwage in 1753, now 
called Windsor, in liroonie L'onnty, N. Y. 

In this he writes: " July 31, 1794. It is forty years this day since 
I was ordained a Missionary to the Indians, in the Old South meeting 
house when the Rev. Dr. Sewall preached on the occasion, and 
the Rev. Mr. Prince gave the charge. I had heen in the service from 
Feb. S. O. S. 1752." ... In his description of Albany, which 
town he passed through, he said: "It is considered as the head of 
navigation, although with small craft the river is navigable to Half- 
Moon, nine miles above it." Coming down to more recent times, the 
writer, in conversation with W. II. .Askins, who has charge of the 
Sloop Lock at the State dam. and who is probably the best authority 
locally on matters pertaining to navigation hereabouts, was told 
that his informant came here in 1840 and remembereil when there 
was tvventv feet of water just below the dam at low tide; that he 
remembered being told about part of the dam being carried awa}-, 
once in 1827 and again in 1837; that before it was repaired 100-ton 
schooners sailed through the breach and went up to Waterford. He 
well remembered Whale Island, then called Goose Island, on account 
of the number of domestic geese that resorted thither, of which 
nothing remains but a bar covered with eel grass to mark its site. 
It was directly opposite the city of Cohoes, east of the south end of 
A'an Schaick's Island, and was described by Adrian \'an cler Donck 
in his " Description of the Xew Netherland " in connection with his 
remarks about the fish found in the Hudson. " I cannot refrain," 
he says, " although somewhat out of place to relate a very singular 
occurrence, which happened in the month of ]\Iarch, 1647, '^t the 
time of a great freshet caused by the fresh water flowing down from 
above, by which the water of the river became nearly fresh to the 
bay, when at ordinary seasons the salt water flows up from twenty to 
twenty-four [Dutch] miles from the sea. At this season two whales, 
of common size, swam up the river forty miles, from which place 
one of them returned and stranded about twelve miles from the sea, 
near which place four others stranded the same year. The other 
run further up the river and grounded near the great Chahoos falls, 
about forty-three miles from the sea. This fish was tolerably fat, 
for, although the citizens of Rensselaerwyck broiled out a great 
quantity of train oil, still the whole river — the current being still 
rapid — was oily for three weeks, and covered with grease. As the 
fish lay rotting the air was infected with its stench to such a degree 
that the smell was offensive and percejitible for two miles to lee- 
ward. For what purpose those whales ascended the river so far, 



it being at the time full forty miles from all salt or brackish water, 
it is difficult to say. unless their great desire for fish, which was 
plenty at this season, led them onward." 

:\lr. Atkins said that two islands below the dam, known as 
'■ Pompey " and " Hay " Islands, the latter containing six acres and 
partially covered with large cottonwoods. have been entirelv swept 
away by freshets. " Man_\- a time." said he. " have I sat on a stump 
of one of those old trees that was four foot through and fished 
in deep water." Now nothing remains but a gravelly, barren waste 
at low water. The tide rises here from one to three and a half feet, 
the maximum being when there is a stilt" south wind. This vear the 
river is the lowest he ever remembered it to be. 

From the foregoing we deduce the following : That vessels larger 
than the Half ]^Ioon have been up at least a quarter of a mile above 
the present limits of the city of Cohoes. Peobles" Island to the north 
of \'an Schaick's having been until the year 1888 in the municipal 
boundaries of the city, but in that year taken from Albany County 
and incorporated into Saratoga County by an act of the Legislature ; 
that from both of Juet's statements in latitude and miles the Half 
Moon came well within the boundaries of the city : and that from 
one statement of Hudson's the ship's boat must have been here, and 
from the other the vessel herself. It follows that we are far from 
the improbable when we assert, with Fiske. that the voyage of the 
great navigator ended here on the Hudson, or. as the Iroquois called 
it. Cohohatatea 1 the river below the cascade), opposite the site of 
the present city of Cohoes. with the scent of pines from Oua-he-mis- 
cos ('\'an Schaick's Island) in the listless air. with the dark green of 
the pines forming a pleasing background, and the climbing clematis 
in full bloom draping the alder-fringed shore, the wild grapevines 
hanging in festoons and reaching to the tops of the shore trees, as 
if they were a decoration spreatl in honor of the event, the water 
rippled in the late September sunlight by the paddles from myriad 
canoes filled with dusky Mohicans gazing with astonishment at the 
strange boat with white wings appearing to them in the offing on that 
" faire and hot " afternoon 300 years ago. September 19, 1609. 

Of the natives, the historian of the voyage says : " The people 
of the countrie came flocking aboord and brought us grapes and 
pompions. which we bought for trifles ... So we rode there all 
night. The dav before, in the afternoone, our master's mate went 
on land with an old savage, a governor of the country: who carried 
him in his house and made him good cheer." Perhaps this was at 
Unuwats Castle on the east bank of the river at the mouth of the 
Poestenkill. the reputed birthplace of Uncas. The next day. which 

14 



was the 19th, they " ran higher up two leagues." This wuuld bring 
them in the neighborhood of Monemins Castle on Nach-ten-nack 
or Peobles' Island, from which place " much people resorted aboord." 

Could we but bring up from the dim past the scene that night, 
three centuries ago, when the ship's " boat returned in a showre of 
raine " and watched the face of the explorer as the mate of the Half 
Moon explained, through an interpreter to Hudson, that the river 
was " at an end for shipping to goe in," our disappointment would 
have been as keen as was that of the great captain. He had the 
backing of the richest corporation on earth ; he had important advice, 
maps and books from various friends, and certain letters " which his 
friend. Captain John Smith, had sent him from A'irginia, and by 
which he informed him that there was a sea reaching into the 
western ocean by the north of the English colony (Jamestown)" and 
now all his superior knowledge and eciuipment was for nought. 
Was this China sea business by the western ocean a myth after all? 

Right here the character of the man became apparent. He wasted 
no time in idle tears, but put his ship right-about and started for 
home with the determination to try again for the coveted honor. On 
the 23d of September he weighed anchor and with everything all 
trim he sailed out of the lower bay on the 4th of October into 
" the mayne sea." His crew was a motley lot of Dutch and Eng- 
lish, mutinous to a dangerous degree. While at sea they held 
counsel together but could not agree. The mate wanted to winter 
in Newfoundland and to search the northwestern passage through 
Davis Strait. Hudson was ojiiiosed to this, being afraid of his 
crew. He proposed to sail for Ireland and winter there, which they 
all agreed to do, but, instead, they went to Dartmouth. Hudson 
reported to his emplovers through Van Meteren, the Dutch Consul, 
and ofifered to leave for the northwest toward the end of March, 
1610, after fitting out, and suggested changing six or seven of the 
crew who were unruly : but he felt he must have 1,500 florins to pur- 
chase supplies. It took a long time for the report to reach the 
East India Comjianv; then thev ordered the ship and crew home. 
Hudson was about to comply, when the English government decided 
not to allow him to leave the country except under the English flag. 

Later Hudson sailed for the northwest passage under English 
auspices. After sailing into Hudson's Bay the crew^ mutinied and left 
him, together with a youthful son and seven others, in one of the 
ship's boats and returned to England. One of the crew confessed 
and an expedition was sent in search of Hudson and his companions, 
but no trace of them was ever discovered. 



16 




The Cohoes Falls 

COHOES, AND THE MEANING OF THE NAME 




I'PAREXTLY the first historical mention of the place 
named Cohoes is maile in a letter written bv Killian 
\'an Rensselaer to Dirck Cornelisz Duyster, July 20, 
1632, who was com mis at I'ort Orange when the 
patroon wrote him as follows: " Kindlv do me the 
favor to have Albert Dieterinck ( surveyor ) or some- 
one else some day pace off the farm lands from 
Aloenemins Castle to the falls and from the falls to the pine wood 
lying above the islands." The castle mentioned was an Indian vil- 
lage at the north end of Ifaver or, as now known, Peebles" Island, 
and the pine woods was in that portion of the city of Watervliet 
located in the neighborhood of liroadway and Twent\-thir<l street, 
where the Erie canal enters the Hudson. The first mention of the 
name from which the word Cohoes is derived is in a work entitled 
" Description of the New Netherlands " by Adrian A'an der Donck. 
published in 1655. 

"The other arm of the North river runs bv four sprouts to the 
great falls of the ]\Iaquas kill (Mohawk river), which the Indians 
named the Chahoos, and our nation the Great Falls : . . . Forty- 
four miles (Dutch) from the sea this North river is divided. ( )ne 
part by four sprouts ascends to the great falls of the ]\Iaquas kill, 
which is named the Chahoos . . . The other part which retains 
the name of the North river is navigable for boats several miles 
farther." The writer mentioned that the river ran through the 



17 



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AUTOGRAPHS OF 

KiLiAEN' Yax Rensselaer 

Adrian' Van Der Donck 

John de Laet 

Pkter Stuyvesant 



Mohawk country and abounded with fish and that they came to trade 
at Fort Orange down the river in canoes made of the bark of trees. 
■■ When they come near the falls they land and carry their boats 
and their lading some distance below the falls and proceed on their 
voyage." 

The Indian name of the mainland MHiih of tiie niomh of the 
Mohawk to the pine wood above mentioned was Xcgagonsc. A note 
by the translator of the \'an Rensselaer Bowier manuscripts saj'S 
that statements made by Killian \'an Rensselaer regarding the pur- 
chase of land, which was made in 1630 from the Indians, shows that 
historical writers have erred in their description of the territorj- cov- 
ered by this first purchase. Their error is distinctly traceable through 
a misconception on the part of Jan Babtist \'an Rensselaer as to the 
location of the tract referred to at Xegagonse. which he placed on 
the east side of the river, whereas in the "Account of the Jurisdic- 
tions '' the Dutch \\'est Indian Company distinctly states that they 
were on the west side as it extended from Peternock. which was 
defined as a tract, south and north of the " mill creek." by which is 
meant the Xormans Kill, also including West or Castle Island, and 
Xegagonse as a tract extending up to Moenemins Castle, presumablv 
from the north end of Castle Island, or a point just south of Fort 
Orange. Therefore, it is evident that the purchase embraced the 
land on the west side of the river from Fort Orange to the Mohawk. 
The earliest known map of this locality is that of one probably 
executed shortly after July 20. 1632. supplied from rough drafts and 
surveys of the colony furnished at various times by Philips Jansz 
van Haerlem. Crijn Fredericksz and Albert Dieterinck. The name 
given by the patroon to the land north of Fort Orange f Albanj) 
to the ilohawk river was Weelijs ( W'ely's ) Dael. This land was 
named for his second wife. Anna van Wely. Another portion of the 
territory comprising the municipality of Cohoes. and which is of 
greater historical interest, is what is now known as \'an Schaick's 
Island. This island lies along the Hudson river with a frontage of 
more than one and a half miles. The Indian name of the island was 
Oua-he-mis-cos and was the Mahican (Mohican) name, the trans- 
lation of which is " Long Island." 

Pursuant to an article in the charter formulated by the States- 
General of Holland that '" Whosoever shall settle any colonies out of 
the limits of ^lanhattes Island (the company reserved to itself the 
island of Manhattes) must satisfy the Indians of that place for the 
land." Philip Pietersen Schuyler and Goosen Gerretsen. residents 
of the village of Beaverswyck (Albany"), addressed, on ^lay 27. 
1664. a petition to the Director-General and Council of Xew Xether- 

19 



land requesting permission to purchase from the ]\Iahikanders a cer- 
tain plain called by the Dutch the Half-Moon, situate at the third 
or fourth mouth of the Mohawk river, with an island between the 
second and third mouth." Some of the " English of Connetikot " 
wanted to buy the land but the Indian proprietors preferred to sell 
it to the petitioners and the latter wished to possess it " to keep the 
English away from this river." Pieter Stuyvesant, the Dutch 
Director-General, and the Council consented, July loth, that year, 
on the condition that if the land should be found to be within the 
limits of Rensselaerw\-ck, the petitioners should acknowledge the 
ownership and jurisdiction of the patroon of the manor; and on the 
nth of September, 1665, O. S. Itamonet. Ahemhameth and Kisho- 







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cama, all Machican owners of the above island, sold and conveyed the 
island to the petitioners before mentioned. Goosen Gerretsen was 
from Westerbroeck, province of L'trecht. His name was first men- 
tioned in the colony in 163". He probably came by the ship Rens- 
selaerwvck in 1636 and he was engaged by the patroon for six years, 
three years at /50 a year and three years at /80 a year. His wages 
began April 8. 1637. In 1648 he became a member of the court 
and was licensed to brew beer in 1649. In 1650 he was appointed 
a trustee of a fund with Arent van Curler for the building of a 
school. After 1660 he was referred to as Goosen Gerritsz van 
Schaick. 



Philip Pietersen Sc1ui}1(.t came from Amsterdam, Holland, to 
America in 1650. He was the j,'reat-grandfather of General Philip 
Schuyler and died in Albaii}- March y, 1683-4, and was buried in the 
old Dutch Reformed Church, situated at the junction of State street 
and Broadway. His son, Peter, was the first Mayor of Albany. 

An interesting and exceedingly able article, written by Edgar H. 
Nichols, Escj., entitled the " Story of \'an Schaick Island," appeared 
in the Colioes Rcpiihlicaii. July 16, iQof). 

The island directly north of \'an Schaick Island, which was 
formerly in the municipality of Cohoes and located in Albany county, 
now known as Peebles' Island, together with the village of Water- 
ford and \'an Schaick Island, were all known as the foreland of the 
Half-Moon. \'an Schaick's Island was also known as Cahose 
Island. 




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Original Indian Grant ok Van Schaick's Island 



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The Indian Signatures with Totem Are as Follows: Itamonet and 
Ahemhameth. By the Absence of Kishocama, a Mahicander Named 
Knaep Hath Put His Mark. Aepio, Otherwise Called Eshmat 
Tabochquemitrid. The Dutch Signatures Are Gerrit Stechonhest, 
Jan Dareth, Gerrit Van Hinck, Goosen Gerretsen, Philip Pietersen 
Schuyler; in the Presence of W. Schellnyne, Secretarius. 

23 



ORIGIN OF PLACE NAME, COHOES 

The significance of the place name, Cohoes, has been variously 
interpreted and in attempting to trace it we must remember that the 
word has been handed down to us through four distinct peoples, 
the Mahican, who used a dialect of the Algonquins ; the Mohawks, 
who used a dialect of the Iroquois: and the Dutch and the English. 
The last two had " varying values for certain letters and their com- 
binations." For illustration, the English Cayuga looks very different 
from the German (iajuka but is very like in sound. The same can be 
said of the French Shatacoin and the English Chatatuiua. Also, the 
Dutch Chahoos and the English Cahose, the last syllable being pro- 
nounced like h-o-s-e in whose. i\Ir. L. H. Morgan, a student of 
Indian dialects, thought it was a Mohawk word, Ga-ha-oos, a ship- 
wrecked canoe. Joseph Brandt, the Indian leader of the atrocious 
Cherry \"alley massacre, who was sent in his youth by Sir Wm. John- 
son to Dr. \\'heeli3ck"s school in Connecticut and who afterward 
traveled extensively in Euro|ie. said the Iroquois word Cah-hoos 
meant a canoe falling. In ^lasten's " History of Cohoes " he quotes 
from the Schenectady Reflector of 1857, that the name is Mohican, 
and that the Canadian Indians still call pitch-holes in the road 
calioos: and Ruttenber, in his " Indian Tribes of the Hudson," says 
it refers to the islands and not the falls. It is a fair object of in(|Liiry 
to trace its meaning, as Indians name places from their most promi- 
nent characteristic. 

The two most jjrominent ])laces in the region where these two 
tribes lived, other than Cohoes, whose names bear a close resemblance 
to Cohoes, are Coos in New Hampshire and Cohasset in ]\Iassa- 
chusetts. both of which words are .-Xlgonquin. The first mention of 
the latter word came from Captain John Smith, the hero of the 
\'irginia Colony, in his f1escri]ition of New England. He visited the 
shores of that country in 1614 and it was then occupied by a tribe of 
Indians from whom he received the name of the locality. To his 
expert ear it sounded as spelled by him, viz., " Ononahassit." The 
spelling has changed — first to Cono-hassit and finally to Cohasset. 

The first part of the word when compared with many others is 
proved to be " long." It can Ije seen in the old spelling of Connecti- 
cut — Oiionnaticiit or Oitiiiiiiiiickiit. from Oiioiia "long" and tiik 

24 



or ittuk, a long tidal river. The same root with a disguised spelling 
is noted in Kennebeck, meaning the same. Kcnne, coiinc, cono, 
quono and quahc are the different spellings of substantially the same 
Indian sounds. The second root of the word Cohasset is hassi from 
hassun, assciic, ossin, etc., meaning rock or stone, the whole word 
meaning a " long-rocky-place." 

Cohoes, in the evolution of the name, has traveled from Clia-hoos, 
1645 (Von der Donck) ; Cohas, 165 1 ; Cohoos (Danker & Sluyter, 
1660). Cohoes (Memoirs of an American Lady, 1757-68), Cahos 
(Minutes of the Albany Council, 1771), Cahoo Falls (Gov. Wm. 
Tryon, 1774), Cohoes (Gov. Thomas Pownall, 1776), Cohoes (JMass. 
Hist. Col., 1-17), Xohos, corrected to Cohoez (Liancourt, a French 
traveler. 1795), Cohoz (Isaac Weld, 1796), Cohos or falls of the 
Mohawk (Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, 1804), Cohoesvillc (articles 
of incorporation of the Cohoes Manufacturing Company, the first 
industry that settled here, comprised exclusively of residents of 
Lansingburgh, who engaged in the manufacture of screws, 1811). 
and Cohoes Bridge (Spafford's Gazetteer. 1824). In 1832. with the 
advent of the first post-office, the government placed a permanent 
name on the hamlet — for it could be called nothing else — and 
from that time Cohoes has been the name of our abiding place. 

But to return to the place name, Cahoos, from an Algoniiuin 
standpoint : 

Coos or Cowass = The white pine. 

Cossayuna = " Lake at our pines " or " pine lake." 

Co = for object. 

Os= loose stone. 

Ossin or assin = a stone. 

Keeping in mind that, in the Algonquin, the adjective precedes the 
noun, which is directly the opposite in the Iroquois, we could form 
a word Oiiannc-coos or Conne-coos, meaning the " long place of the 
pines,'" or Co-os, " place of stones." Obviously this is far from a 
satisfactory solution of the place name Cahoos, and while there were 
abundant groves of pine and plenty of long rocky places in this sec- 
tion, they could hardly be prominent enough to warrant the applica- 
tion of such minor features to represent a locality abounding with 
manifestly greater peculiarities ; and so we feel obliged to dismiss 
the idea of an Algonquin origin. 

After 1628 the Iroquois invasion and occupation followed the 
Algonquins and the Dutch came more in contact with the former 
nation, and it was after this that we first hear of the name Cha-hoos 
or Cahoos. 

2.S 



The following Iroquois words will help in the analysis either in 
building or eliminating : 

a-ta-te-a = river, 
ca-hoon-ge or ka-hon-ji = black, 
ga-hu-wa ^ canoe. 
CO = cascade. 

Co-ho-ha-ta-te-a or Cahohatatea = river below the cascade (the 
Hudson). 

io = beautiful. 

co-io = beautiful falls. 

These examples of Iroquois words are from Ruttenber's " Indian 
Tribes of the Hudson." In one of the dialects of the Iroquois, ac- 
cording to Sir William Johnson, he states that their language, 
" though not very wordy, is extremely emphatic . . . The article 
is contained in the noun by varying the termination ; and the 
adjective is combined into one word. Thus: Caghynngha-u', is a 
creek;- Caghniiglia, is a river; Caghyunghaowana, is a great river, 
and Caghyunghcco, a fine river." The prefix ca evidently denoting 
water in motion. 

It would seem from the foregoing that we could safely venture 
that the name of Cohoes is of Iroquois origin, and the meaning is 
" below the falls." 

This solution would harmonize with the earliest allusions to this 
section, as at times the locality called the Cahoos was meant for the 
islands ; at other times for the north and south sides of the Mohawk 
and the west shore of the Hudson along the rock isles at the mouth 
of the Mohawk. 



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